Straying Bullet:2. Piracy is the main point holding PC back, it isn't profitable much as the consoles. See the release dates and start asking if pirates aren't ruining the industry they 'love' so much and want 'lazy' devolepers to get off their asses.

yeah, that will be why there are Xbox 360 and PS3 torrents all over torrent sites with millions of downloads, because console games never get pirated, oh no.

Obviously you don't know how much PC games get torrented. I don't know if there are really millions of downloads for the console but fact remains consoles > PC when it comes to actually gaining a good amount of profit for a triple AAA+ titles.

I never denied consoles are getting pirated but I take cue from major devs that openly stated piracy is making them shy away from PC.

For under $500, I'm building:Athlon II X4, 1 GB DDR5 video card, 4 Gig DDR RAM, 1 TB hard drive, Bluray player/DVD burner with 7.1 fiber optic out surround sound. A PS3, which I love, can't touch this for gaming. More important to me: I can play movies, music, store photos, stream HBO and Netflix, etc. or just surf the web. (OK, I can also get computer viruses and have bloatware snuck onto my PC).

The market has spoken: Most people would rather just drop a few hundred dollars on a console and game on that. Meanwhile, PC developers are jumping ship to consoles left and right. There's a very, very clear trend here and it isn't toward PC gaming.

Consoles aren't going anywhere, and MS and Sony aren't going to "converge" unless the market shrinks to the point where they can no longer compete and be profitable. Which it isn't.

how? have you SEEN steam? the money needed to be a console developer is getting too high with all the fees being thrown around. ever wonder why console games are 60 while PC games are 50 bucks? the fees are so damn high they need to charge more just to get ends meet. the money needed to make consoles is getting so high that sony and microsoft are losing money on every console sold and need to charge developers extortionate prices to make games on their console. developers are being choked by $ony and M$ to the point they just say "fuck it" not to mention the growing used game sales. hell the only reason console gaming is still around is because of used game sales.

the developers have spoken, they wont take shit from greedy corporations for games that most likely fail from the get go. hell COD and MOH practically get released every year and blow away sales, choking the rest of the market. why bother with consoles anymore? unless your activision it just ain't worth it.

Still, I remain a console player at heart (even though my PS3 is far away at home and I have no TV at uni... *sniff*) - I honestly don't have £5000 or however much to invest in a big gaming powerhouse of a PC

To be fair I spent £650 on a gaming pc and the only thing I needed to upgrade was the GPU to play the latest games on the highest settings, don't be conned into buying a pre-built gaming pc, I just got the cheapest base model from dell then put the best processor and RAM available in.

For under $500, I'm building:Athlon II X4, 1 GB DDR5 video card, 4 Gig DDR RAM, 1 TB hard drive, Bluray player/DVD burner with 7.1 fiber optic out surround sound. A PS3, which I love, can't touch this for gaming. More important to me: I can play movies, music, store photos, stream HBO and Netflix, etc. or just surf the web. (OK, I can also get computer viruses and have bloatware snuck onto my PC).

The market has spoken: Most people would rather just drop a few hundred dollars on a console and game on that. Meanwhile, PC developers are jumping ship to consoles left and right. There's a very, very clear trend here and it isn't toward PC gaming.

Consoles aren't going anywhere, and MS and Sony aren't going to "converge" unless the market shrinks to the point where they can no longer compete and be profitable. Which it isn't.

The market has spoken, and there's a very clear trend here and it ain't towards traditional controllers either. People are going to jump ship over that, most likely. Just wait and see.

Like I wrote, I think the 360 and PS3 are here for another 5 years. I do stand corrected, Wii HD is coming and is technically a new console.

I just can't imagine that 6 or 7 years from now, people are going to buy a PS3 or 360 at any price when a PC is going to be about 32 times as powerful. And if such a PC can be bought for $600, what would a console have to offer to be attractive?

Straying Bullet:2. Piracy is the main point holding PC back, it isn't profitable much as the consoles. See the release dates and start asking if pirates aren't ruining the industry they 'love' so much and want 'lazy' devolepers to get off their asses.

yeah, that will be why there are Xbox 360 and PS3 torrents all over torrent sites with millions of downloads, because console games never get pirated, oh no.

Obviously you don't know how much PC games get torrented. I don't know if there are really millions of downloads for the console but fact remains consoles > PC when it comes to actually gaining a good amount of profit for a triple AAA+ titles.

I never denied consoles are getting pirated but I take cue from major devs that openly stated piracy is making them shy away from PC.

oh? then why does the PC make up almost 42% of the profit in the ENTIRE gaming industry? and expected to grow up to 51%? hell the PC blew away profits against the Wii, the most popular console.

Actually, I think the future is in PC gaming. Because there is one day that computing power is more then enough for games, graphic, alike, and price of hardware is not a factor any more, therefore other element will take a bigger part in the competition and PC have a adventage that is highly customable, and can perform more tasks than a console. It pretty much become a all in one machine that does everything. Unless the company want to continune to use Console as a DRM, but I think "always connected" is the furture of DRM.

yeah, that will be why there are Xbox 360 and PS3 torrents all over torrent sites with millions of downloads, because console games never get pirated, oh no.

Obviously you don't know how much PC games get torrented. I don't know if there are really millions of downloads for the console but fact remains consoles > PC when it comes to actually gaining a good amount of profit for a triple AAA+ titles.

I never denied consoles are getting pirated but I take cue from major devs that openly stated piracy is making them shy away from PC.

oh? then why does the PC make up almost 42% of the profit in the ENTIRE gaming industry? and expected to grow up to 51%? hell the PC blew away profits against the Wii, the most popular console.

If you are referring to the PC Gamer Alliance list, just stop right there. I am NOT going to enter a discussion with you because you are obviously are going for it, I am trying to keep it neutral and stating what devs told the public.

All I know is that if a publisher releases a game on all three main platform for 'hardcore' gaming, the consoles always surpass the PC. Sure, there are BIG PC releases/games but a good portion always comes from MMORPG's like WoW.

Don't get me wrong, I love PC gaming, I wouldn't trade my rig and Morrowind for gold but listen to devs, not some lists you found on the internet.

Still, I remain a console player at heart (even though my PS3 is far away at home and I have no TV at uni... *sniff*) - I honestly don't have £5000 or however much to invest in a big gaming powerhouse of a PC, and my little 13" MacBook Pro can't really compete against my PS3 graphically speaking :P

Also, graphics aren't everything Crytek! In many cases high-end graphics themselves can hold back games too - just look at Minecraft!

Do you have 700 pounds sterling and three hours of free time? That would also work.

And no, graphics aren't everything. However, Crytek fills the graphics whore niche, and I like it that way. They're within their rights to protest that consoles are behind graphically (although they could just go PC exclusive if they were willing to put their money where their mouth is/risk everything).

Obviously you don't know how much PC games get torrented. I don't know if there are really millions of downloads for the console but fact remains consoles > PC when it comes to actually gaining a good amount of profit for a triple AAA+ titles.

I never denied consoles are getting pirated but I take cue from major devs that openly stated piracy is making them shy away from PC.

oh? then why does the PC make up almost 42% of the profit in the ENTIRE gaming industry? and expected to grow up to 51%? hell the PC blew away profits against the Wii, the most popular console.

If you are referring to the PC Gamer Alliance list, just stop right there. I am NOT going to enter a discussion with you because you are obviously are going for it, I am trying to keep it neutral and stating what devs told the public.

All I know is that if a publisher releases a game on all three main platform for 'hardcore' gaming, the consoles always surpass the PC. Sure, there are BIG PC releases/games but a good portion always comes from MMORPG's like WoW.

Don't get me wrong, I love PC gaming, I wouldn't trade my rig and Morrowind for gold but listen to devs, not some lists you found on the internet.

how? the PC is mostly digital sales which make up most of the sales and those sales are NOT COUNTED while the consoles ARE. saying console sales are bigger than PC is like saying the earth is bigger than a planet we know almost nothing about. wait until 100% of the sales on both sides are counted before making such assumptions. hell the revenue coming off of steam is staggering even against console standards.

The issue is more complicated than people seem to think. It's not a matter of console capabilities vs. PC capabilities, that's a foregone conclusion. What's more PC gaming was bigger than console gaming for quite a while.

I think people are overlooking a few important factors such as:

1: World Of Warcraft (and other MMORPGs). I'm sure we've all noticed how much time people put into MMORPGs in general. The thing about them is that people that get that invested in one game that they play continuously, do not wind up spending that much money on other games. It happens, but not as frequently as it was before when people would play a game for a month or two and then be ready for other games. When looking specifically at the PC gaming market this kind of thing has had a massive impact.

What's more, it's not really a competitive genere. Few companies are willing to invest the time and money into making a competitive game in this field. You can't just cough up a couple of million dollars, attach a subscription fee, and have a successful MMORPG. The first games that were invested in properly set a very high bar, and then continued to expand. A new game being produced has to compete with those games.

I say a "few games" because I think people miss the point that the MMORPG community is not totally WoW-centric. Sure it has the most massive group of players, but there are other games that boast communities of a hundred thousand or more players. When you take the majority of those people out of the marketing equasion for the majority of games, they add up to a substantial part of the problem.

Sure there are some games like say "Starcraft 2" and "Dragon Age" that have pulled away MMORPG gamers for a time, but that's fairly uncommon. I think part of the problem is that tons of titles have been released and then languished there because they just didn't generate enough interest from the guys playing MMORPGs. Heck, even MMORPG players will frequently claim that they buy less games than they used to.

2: There is also the delusional aspect of all of this. Simply put PC game developers and producers have gotten it into their heads that there are pirates under every bush. They tend to focus as much on how many times they think their games were stolen, as on how many copies they sold and whether or not they made money (and how much).

The self-deluded nature of the games industry has lead to a ton of draconian DRM schemes, digital downloads (perhaps disguised on a disk), and an increasing reliance on client services like STEAM. All of these things born of paranoia and greed have created an enviroment where legitimate PC gamers find their platform of choice a major pain. Nobody wants to jump through 47 differant hoops and be online (at least to activate) to play a game.

Consoles have the advantage of the games being harder to pirate, thus generate less insanity from an industry that has taken up bean-counter worship, and views project profits as an entitlement handed down from a burning bush, rather than wishful thinking (and thus does stupid things like borrow against money they don't have, compounding their problems, when they say merely make 10 million in profits after covering expenses instead of 30 million some weenie in a business suit told them to expect). From a user perspective you can just pop in the game, and go, even if there is an install it's typically no big deal. The vast majority of games don't require you to be online at any point either, making internet a nice conveinence rather than a definate nessecity.

3: Slightly connected to the above is also what I think of as the "Tantrum Factor". Simply put game developers convinced themselves of this golden age of PC gaming where they could produce games with draconian EULAs and then actually enforce them through digital distribution, with customers effectively receiving nothing for their investment of money, and giving the producers and developers total control.

Not to mention all that glorious cash that they could rake in by cutting out packaging, production, and distribution and pocketing that expense money as pure profit.

The problem of course is that there are no benefits to this for the consumer. We lose control over what we paid money for. We also become dependant on the continued existance of download services to access our games. Look at the panic GOG's stunt caused, and they are selling relatively inexpensive, older games, not ones that people are paying $50 a pop for. A person buying a game wants to be able to stick their disc into a drive 10 years later and install/play it (hardware permitting)... even if the store they bought from closed, and the company that made the game no longer exists (as we all know happens, I mean look at companies like Origin, Troika, Black Isle, and others that all dissolved or were bought out).

Not getting what they want has caused the game industry to want to gravitate away from the platform. This is not as big an issue as #1 and #2, but it is a factor. We keep hearing "Digital Downloads are the way of the future, it's coming, whether you like it or not!" but at the same time you see the producers and distributers moving away from the PC and regrouping because simply put they aren't getting the sales they want, and efforts to hide digital downloads on discs to get people use to the idea are making PC gamers wary of even buying physical media.

Yes, things like STEAM are making decent money and moving decent numbers of games, but the market is trivial compared to what it could be because relatively few people buy games that way. Your typical gamer is going to go console and own his game right now (despite them trying to go digital too), I think people, and the gaming media in paticular (who are more or less making their paychecks promoting what the industry wants) undervalue how big a factor this kind of thing can be.

I call it the "Tantrum Factor" both because it annoys me, and because on a lot of levels it remdinds me of a petulant 4 year old being told he can't have something, and then sitting there stamping his foot and being annoying until he either relents and goes away (which is always an annoying process which seems to take forever) or the adult relents and gives them what they want (which is typically a bad idea). In this case instead of a snack food, or a toy in a department store, we're dealing with digital download technology which shines brightly in the eyes of the game industry because of all it can do for them, but really has few benefits to the consumers. With all the DRM, and the need for client services, internet verification, and similar things the big arguement about conveience doesn't even really apply despite attempts to sell it that way.

-

Such are my thoughts, and no, I am not being especially nice or diplomatic here, but what can I say? I have strong feelings about it. I don't think the gaming industy walks on water, and hard core criticisms are well deserved.

My point is also that (as I said to begin with) there is a LOT more to this than just hardware. I do not think PC gaming is dying so much because of the consoles, but because of industry attitudes, and also the simple fact that for PCs we're in the age of the MMO, and the bar for PC games has been set ridiculously high, where with consoles there is a lot more room without MMOs to make money with very generic games and what amounts to mid and high budget shovelware. You can't crank out "Space Marine FPS #324341: Assault on Planet Generica" with decent graphics, but deritive gameplay, and expect the same kind of returns because that isn't going to drag the core audience away from their MMOs which is a concern today. On the other hand a console gamer has probably just gotten burned out from the last "Call Of Duty" after a few months and will sit there and say "yeah it's generic, but your not considering the multiplayer!". Multiplayer being a life extender that doesn't involve quite the same long term investment as MMOs.

Also while I'm rambling a bit one more big point:

There is a lot of supposition in certain forums that one of the big reasons we have not seen MMORPGs on consoles is because of exactly the concern above. If you release a really good MMORPG that gets millions of users playing non-stop, a lot of those people are not going to stop for the newest release. I think parts of the industry are walking a fine line in not wanting to say "no" and alienate people fond of the idea, but at the same token are making it deliberatly difficult and causing the stumbling blocks people have tried to make them have hit. Sure we've had a few like "Final Fantasy Online", and we're about to see "DC Universe Online", but those are rare exceptions and think of all the games like "Age Of Conan" that were more or less axe murdered despite plans for a console release.

That's supposition though, not anything anyone knows for sure. However given the unwillingness of Microsoft to work with MMO developers (despite the claimed reasons) and the factor with PC gaming, I can see the logic here.

Ultratwinkie:oh? then why does the PC make up almost 42% of the profit in the ENTIRE gaming industry? and expected to grow up to 51%? hell the PC blew away profits against the Wii, the most popular console.

I bet there is some truth in your statements, I am not going to check or verify. Even if Steam outsells in digital sales compared to console retail & digital, explain to me why most games are showing up on the consoles first instead of the PC nowadays?

Once again, devs are making these decisions, not me or you. But I don't believe PC gaming is dying, at all.

Yes, I have. I have not seen it stem the tide of formerly PC-first games going console first and getting half-assed PC ports, at best. Are you aware that even Valve is trying to push into the console market now?

the money needed to be a console developer is getting too high with all the fees being thrown around. ever wonder why console games are 60 while PC games are 50 bucks? the fees are so damn high they need to charge more just to get ends meet. the money needed to make consoles is getting so high that sony and microsoft are losing money on every console sold and need to charge developers extortionate prices to make games on their console. developers are being choked by $ony and M$ to the point they just say "fuck it" not to mention the growing used game sales. hell the only reason console gaming is still around is because of used game sales.

the developers have spoken, they wont take shit from greedy corporations for games that most likely fail from the get go. hell COD and MOH practically get released every year and blow away sales, choking the rest of the market. why bother with consoles anymore? unless your activision it just ain't worth it.

I'm sorry, but this is pure, rambling fanbody rage. You've gotten so many facts wrong that I can't imagine that you even care.

I bet there is some truth in your statements, I am not going to check or verify. Even if Steam outsells in digital sales compared to console retail & digital, explain to me why most games are showing up on the consoles first instead of the PC nowadays?

Once again, devs are making these decisions, not me or you. But I don't believe PC gaming is dying, at all.

they show up first because they are mostly retail and are easy to count. the PC however is SCATTERED. there is no "set" way to get PC games anymore opposed to consoles. you can get it off retail or digital which have a WIDE ARRAY of vendors which makes tracking hard to do not to mention it also requires registering which not everyone does. tracking PC sales is like tracking big foot, you only get a grainy picture of what the figure looks like.

Dom Kebbell:Try £500 to £800 for a good gaming rig. though if you a laptop boy more in the region of a £1000 to £1300.

Nonsense.

I payed £300 in toital for mine. just build it yourself.

I do self build, would that price include monitor, keyboard etc as well? from the post he would be starting from scratch so it's important to consider everything and a decent monitor will be around £100 on it's own.

You're right! 300 pounds is just the starting price, when I factor in accessories and a monitor, it looks more like £500-600.

Console is definitely the way to go only £250! Oh, but now I need a tv, that's another £200 oh, and I guess if I buy a console, I'll also need to buy a cheap computer, can't play games ALL the time, that's at least another 200-300 pounds.

So if I shop conservatively, find bargains, or just get outright inferior tech, I'll probably save around 50 quid over building a moderately-priced PC. But the CONSOLE is so much cheaper.

Yes, I have. I have not seen it stem the tide of formerly PC-first games going console first and getting half-assed PC ports, at best. Are you aware that even Valve is trying to push into the console market now?

the money needed to be a console developer is getting too high with all the fees being thrown around. ever wonder why console games are 60 while PC games are 50 bucks? the fees are so damn high they need to charge more just to get ends meet. the money needed to make consoles is getting so high that sony and microsoft are losing money on every console sold and need to charge developers extortionate prices to make games on their console. developers are being choked by $ony and M$ to the point they just say "fuck it" not to mention the growing used game sales. hell the only reason console gaming is still around is because of used game sales.

the developers have spoken, they wont take shit from greedy corporations for games that most likely fail from the get go. hell COD and MOH practically get released every year and blow away sales, choking the rest of the market. why bother with consoles anymore? unless your activision it just ain't worth it.

I'm sorry, but this is pure, rambling fanbody rage. You've gotten so many facts wrong that I can't imagine that you even care.

then explain why its "wrong". you cant just say "its wrong" then dismiss it because that isn't a rebuttal. However valve has clearly stated that their games are the best of PC and are only going into the PS3 thanks to a contract they signed with sony that REQUIRED THEM TO MOVE INTO THE PS3. they wont do the wii or the xbox because of the exclusivity deal. the PC versions are the best overall but the PS3 is the best console version of their games which is not the same as THE best.

I bet there is some truth in your statements, I am not going to check or verify. Even if Steam outsells in digital sales compared to console retail & digital, explain to me why most games are showing up on the consoles first instead of the PC nowadays?

Once again, devs are making these decisions, not me or you. But I don't believe PC gaming is dying, at all.

they show up first because they are mostly retail and are easy to count. the PC however is SCATTERED. there is no "set" way to get PC games anymore apposed to consoles. you can get it off retail or digital which have a WIDE ARRAY of vendors which makes tracking hard to do not to mention it also requires registering which not everyone does. tracking PC sales is like tracking big foot, you only get a grainy picture of what the figure looks like.

Yes, that's you and if you are willing to find out, listen to what the devs reasons are to actually delay releases of big games months after people on the console enjoyed it.

You still haven't answered my actual question why devs delay it. It's not because to 'count' because why should they? They want instant money for their product, most logicial thing to do would be releasing every game on every platform on the same time.

I just can't imagine that 6 or 7 years from now, people are going to buy a PS3 or 360 at any price when a PC is going to be about 32 times as powerful. And if such a PC can be bought for $600, what would a console have to offer to be attractive?

First off, console gaming is still easier. A lot of people would just not bother having to install games, troubleshoot, bother with the DRM that's taken over the PC market, etc.

Second- it doesn't matter how many times more powerful PCs get if games aren't being made to take advantage of it. As long as games are still being designed around being able to run on a console, the differences between the console version and the PC version will be limited.

We'll get a new gen of consoles when either MS or Sony decide that the advantage of releasing a new system outweighs the cost of doings so. The recession has stalled that, but it will happen.

I bet there is some truth in your statements, I am not going to check or verify. Even if Steam outsells in digital sales compared to console retail & digital, explain to me why most games are showing up on the consoles first instead of the PC nowadays?

Once again, devs are making these decisions, not me or you. But I don't believe PC gaming is dying, at all.

they show up first because they are mostly retail and are easy to count. the PC however is SCATTERED. there is no "set" way to get PC games anymore apposed to consoles. you can get it off retail or digital which have a WIDE ARRAY of vendors which makes tracking hard to do not to mention it also requires registering which not everyone does. tracking PC sales is like tracking big foot, you only get a grainy picture of what the figure looks like.

Yes, that's you and if you are willing to find out, listen to what the devs reasons are to actually delay releases of big games months after people on the console enjoyed it.

You still haven't answered my actual question why devs delay it. It's not because to 'count' because why should they? They want instant money for their product, most logicial thing to do would be releasing every game on every platform on the same time.

that is simple. corporations like sony and microsoft like to do a "console war" and pay DEARLY to get the game first on their console. look up the DLC dead money, M$ paid money for it to be on xbox first so people will have a reason to choose xbox over the PS3 and PC. its just more war tactics that have been around for centuries.

Old news to be honest. It's been like this since at least December last year. DX11 gives PC's a massive graphical advantage and the CPU's give them a massive power advantage.BUT it has to be said that the PS3 is onto something - no PC can match it's computational power for price by a long shot and seeing the issues they are reaching in electronics, the Cell is the way forward. So for next generation gaming, get a PC. If you want to see the future of electronics, look at the PS3.

Straying Bullet:Yes, that's you and if you are willing to find out, listen to what the devs reasons are to actually delay releases of big games months after people on the console enjoyed it.

You still haven't answered my actual question why devs delay it. It's not because to 'count' because why should they? They want instant money for their product, most logicial thing to do would be releasing every game on every platform on the same time.

Simple. Making games for PC is HARD. If a game works on one PS3, it will work on all of them. If a game works on one gaming rig, that DOESN'T mean it will work on another.

Basically, a dev develops the game on a computer, then specializes it for a console. Back when computers were less diverse, they could put out the PC version while they ported it to console. Nowadays, they're done porting it to console but only STARTED figuring out why it works on a GTX 280 but not a GTX 260 (and making it work).

Ultratwinkie:oh? then why does the PC make up almost 42% of the profit in the ENTIRE gaming industry? and expected to grow up to 51%? hell the PC blew away profits against the Wii, the most popular console.

Say what? It sold over a million copies in four months - that does not equate to a failure by any means but COD "It needs to sell ten million copies on launch day to break even" standards.And I'd bet anything it's still selling well - as long as it remains the benchmark for PC graphics, people will have a reason to buy it besides "it's the next big thing."

then explain why its "wrong". you cant just say "its wrong" then dismiss it

Actually, I can! Watch: Your post is so obviously wrong and filled with nonsense that it is beneath me to waste time disecting it. It deserves to be dismissed out of hand.

but then your admitting defeat and can find no way to counter it. without evidence against this you cant exactly say "i object, its wrong!" because that is the same argument against the theory of evolution which has, and always will, fail.

Straying Bullet:Yes, that's you and if you are willing to find out, listen to what the devs reasons are to actually delay releases of big games months after people on the console enjoyed it.

You still haven't answered my actual question why devs delay it. It's not because to 'count' because why should they? They want instant money for their product, most logicial thing to do would be releasing every game on every platform on the same time.

Simple. Making games for PC is HARD. If a game works on one PS3, it will work on all of them. If a game works on one gaming rig, that DOESN'T mean it will work on another.

Basically, a dev develops the game on a computer, then specializes it for a console. Back when computers were less diverse, they could put out the PC version while they ported it to console. Nowadays, they're done porting it to console but only STARTED figuring out why it works on a GTX 280 but not a GTX 260 (and making it work).

Actually it's nothing like that because PC games are built on API's the programming is exactly the same, the only difference in hardware of the same generation is processing speed, PC hardware is not accessed directly Its why DirectX and OpenGl exists because the hardware is so diverse it was a pain back in the old days of having to program for certain hardware, back when we had stuff like Duke3D soundcard support was a nightmare now it is not a problem

Straying Bullet:Yes, that's you and if you are willing to find out, listen to what the devs reasons are to actually delay releases of big games months after people on the console enjoyed it.

You still haven't answered my actual question why devs delay it. It's not because to 'count' because why should they? They want instant money for their product, most logicial thing to do would be releasing every game on every platform on the same time.

Simple. Making games for PC is HARD. If a game works on one PS3, it will work on all of them. If a game works on one gaming rig, that DOESN'T mean it will work on another.

Basically, a dev develops the game on a computer, then specializes it for a console. Back when computers were less diverse, they could put out the PC version while they ported it to console. Nowadays, they're done porting it to console but only STARTED figuring out why it works on a GTX 280 but not a GTX 260 (and making it work).

Actually it's nothing like that because PC games are built on API's the programming is exactly the same, the only difference in hardware of the same generation is processing speed, PC hardware is not accessed directly Its why DirectX and OpenGl exists because the hardware is so diverse it was a pain back in the old days of having to program for certain hardware, back when we had stuff like Duke3D soundcard support was a nightmare now it is not a problem

Quick question: How come Batman: AA rejected my computer until I replaced the motherboard with a slightly better one?

In a perfect world we would all buy a PC. Problem is, to get the aforementioned graphics from the gates of heaven look, you need to spend a retarded amount. Anything less than this amount often leaves you with something pretty horrific and as not everyone has infinite sums of money, pretty horrific is what stays. I honestly think pc developers don't look at what the core pc is and how good the graphics will look on it. I think they only care for the uber most PC and everything else is a nuisance to them.

My point here being that the constant pressure on games to look as good as possible has had a negative effect, just as it has with movies (Transformers 2). Maybe NOT concentrating on the aesthetics for a while will lead to better crafted experiences? Deeper plots, more engaging characters, greater variety in gameplay... there's still a lot more that you can do with this gen of tech as MS and Sony well know.

That won't make nearly as much money as half-assing the plot, tweaking what currently works, and re-packaging it.Call of Duty. Halo. any series with a 4+ in its title. Any given Nintendo franchise...or the innumerable clones of any of these.

Those set the records. Those make the big-bucks. And 95% of those are shallow rehashes of the same game we've seen before.

Aesthetics/tech on the other hand ALWAYS shows off a measurable increase, or improvement to the gamer. So when looking around for a new game (and when they all happen to be the same thing as before) what do you think is going to sell better:1) Last year's game.2) Last year's game with next year's graphics?

Crytek is being part of the problem. Sure it's great to raise the technical ceiling, but only so long as the gameplay isn't effected.And the gameplay IS BEING effected. It's becoming noticeably more shallow across the board.

The industry has created this profit-cycle that will forever trap most titles in stagnation, and they WANT IT to stay that way.

Little Duck:In a perfect world we would all buy a PC. Problem is, to get the aforementioned graphics from the gates of heaven look, you need to spend a retarded amount. Anything less than this amount often leaves you with something pretty horrific and as not everyone has infinite sums of money, pretty horrific is what stays. I honestly think pc developers don't look at what the core pc is and how good the graphics will look on it. I think they only care for the uber most PC and everything else is a nuisance to them.